


The Longest Night

by Phoenixflames12



Category: North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell | UK TV
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 15:12:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7468527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘Their faces were cold and rigid, and wan, from long watching.’ Pg. 515</p><p>Hannah Thornton comes across her son attempting to resurrect the mill's fortunes and trying to understand his feelings towards Margaret Hale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Longest Night

 

‘ _Their faces were cold and rigid, and wan, from long watching.’ Pg. 515_

‘Mother?’

 

The words feel thick and hard and heavy on his tongue as he pulls his head from his arms; starting slightly at the sudden darkness.

 

He is sure that it had been light when he entered; as light as it could be with the smoke of Malborough Mills, but the lamp has burnt down to a wick and the shadows thrown from the one held by his Mother are short and what precious light they are granted now will not last long.

 

She stands in the doorway to his study, his _father’s_ study; that still, all these years later, holds ghosts of the old man whom he has forced himself to forget. The man who had lead them all to ruin and now…

 

He cannot think of that.

 

‘Mother, what is it?’ He pushes the chair back, leaning on the polished oaken table for support; watching her face flicker in and out of the lamplight.

 

Her face is thin in the sharp glow; thin and hollow and filled with many silent cares that he knows she will never give voice to unless he presses her.

 

The papers that have been his entire existence mean little now; the ink on the latest letter not yet dried.

 

She does not answer him at first but crosses the room in long, silent steps towards his chair, her gaze drawn with the shared exhaustion he feels to the depths of his bones.

 

‘Trade is bad?’

 

Flint coloured eyes set deep in worn, weathered skin are filled with questions that he cannot answer, cannot articulate into words what the figures spell out for him, for her, for the mill that has been his lifeblood for so long now.

 

For the mill, for Margaret, for the multitude of explanations that now he will never be able to give her, for the passion that she has stirred itself up inside him and now can never be expressed.

 

For Margaret with her hands locked around his neck; clear grey eyes silently pleading with him what her lips could not articulate above the din of the strike rabble.

 

_Oh Margaret… Oh Mother… Mother… What shall I do?_

_What can I do?_

 

‘… will it be a failure?’ He hears the steadiness in his mother’s voice that he has come to rely on, tremble, falter for just a moment and cannot bear what he will have to tell her.

 

He barely hears his reply, feeling the knurled comfort of her palm resting on his shoulder; the weight of so many years, so much undue hardship that he has tried so hard to protect her and Fanny from and yet has failed; failed so miserably that he can barely look at himself now.

 

‘ _I sometimes have wondered where justice has gone to, and now I don’t believe there is such a thing in the world- now you are come to this; you, my own John Thornton!’_

 

He knows that it is not him she is thinking of when she speaks his name with such silent, tearful passion; her lips pressed to his knuckles, their hands clasped in a shaking, silent embrace.

 

He knows deep down that it is his father, his father who had led them all to ruin when he was little more than twelve and Fanny barely six, whom she is thinking of as he feels the warmth of her hands cup his chin, drawing his face towards hers.

 

‘Mother…’

 

Tears slice her cheeks; salt stained rivers that prick his fingers as he reaches to thumb them away, remembering with a pang the many times that she had done the exact action to him when was a child.

 

From the window behind her head, he can just make out the ruddy lights of dawn slowly ascend over the mill tower; bathing the town in a silent, wistful glow of better times.

 

‘You are my son, whatever the world may think,’ the words are caught with silent sobs, her lips stinging of salt as she kisses his cheek and cups his chin; drinking him up, refusing to let him go.

 

He finds the strength to nod but not to smile, knowing that they must go on.

 

It is his duty to go on; his duty to her and Fanny and Nicholas Higgins and Margaret and through the cool, cold light of dawn, he knows that he cannot fail her.

 

* * *

_**Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review!
> 
> Comments, suggestions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love and enjoy x


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